Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my monthlong countdown of favorite alien moments in pop culture. Fiona and I have dedicated our blogs this month to this topic in honor of the upcoming release of our book, The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters, available where books are sold on September 23, 2014.

A book with a cover so awesome, you feel compelled to click on it and pre-order from Amazon.What, you don't? Why not? All the cool kids are doing it.

Already this month I have dedicated an entry to Orson Welles' classic rendition of War of the Worlds (# 5), The Iron Giant, a.k.a. the saddest movie about an alien befriending a young boy not directed by Stephen Spielberg (# 4), and to the original Star Wars (# 3), but today I'm going to talk about one of the greatest, creepiest shows of all time:

God, what hasn't already been said about The Twilight Zone? I mean, like any anthology series, it was hit or miss at the best of times, but man when it hit it was some of the greatest, most iconic television in history, with villains and monsters that can still terrify to this day.

Including, but not limited to, reasons to fear flying...

...Chucky's Grandma...

...and my vote for the scariest villain on TV.

Of course, being a scifi/horror show of the 1950's and 60's, a lot of its plots were based around aliens and flying saucers, and there truly are a lot of classic (and not-so-classic) episodes based on them. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street and Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? taught us that aliens could be hiding anywhere, while To Serve Man taught us that sometimes it might be best to translate mysterious texts before turning over all of our trust to a bunch of giant aliens.

But they look so trustworthy!

But for my money, my favorite alien-based episode of The Twilight Zone would have to be The Invaders.

The Invaders is one of the simplest and creepiest episodes of The Twilight Zone. It only has one actress onscreen for it's 20-something minute runtime, almost no dialogue, and a constant, building terror that, if extended to feature length, would have made this an 80's horror classic.It stars the awesome Agnes Moorehead as a single, elderly woman living out in a farm in the middle of the country. She lives a simple, quiet life, until one day she hears a strange noise and a crash into her attic. Examining the sound, she finds a flying saucer, as well as the titular invaders.

These creepy-looking guys.

The rest of the episode is a bloody, violent fight to the death between this farmer and these two well-armed aliens. If it sounds like a mismatched 1960's version of Die Hard, well, I think there's something else I should mention to give the full picture.

There's a bit of a size disparity between the two sides.

Even though she's easily twenty times the size of the invaders, they are determined and heavily armed with small but powerful laser weapons. It's a slow escalation, with the woman first initially scared and trying to run from the aliens, but slowly and gradually beginning to fight back, forcing the invaders themselves into a more desperate fight than they were clearly expecting.

And for those of you who don't want spoilers on a 50 year old TV show episode's twist ending, consider this a SPOILER ALERT:By the end of the episode, the woman has killed both invaders and smashed their flying saucer to bits with an ax. It is at this moment that we hear the first non-Rod Serling dialogue of the episodes as one of the invaders sends a last desperate transmission to his homeworld, warning them of a planet of hostile giants, right as we see the insignia on the crushed flying saucer reading US Air Force.Cheesy? Yes, but damn is it good, creepy fun.

So dear readers, what's your favorite episode of The Twilight Zone? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my monthlong countdown of favorite alien moments in pop culture. Fiona and I have dedicated our blogs this month to this topic in honor of the upcoming release of our book, The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters, available where books are sold on September 23, 2014.

There's something hiding in this picture. Hint: It's a hyperlink to Amazon.

Already this month I have dedicated an entry to Orson Welles' classic rendition of War of the Worlds (# 5) and to The Iron Giant, a.k.a. the saddest movie about an alien befriending a young boy not directed by Stephen Spielberg (# 4), but today I'm going to talk about one of the all time classics.

A poster so awesome, you can ignore the fact that Luke and Leia don't look a thing like Luke and Leia.

I don't have to go into a lot of detail about this one, do I? Star Wars kind of speaks for itself, and enough words have been expended on it's merits and flaws and creator on the internet that I don't really have to add too terribly much to it. What I will say, is that it's the first movie I can remember watching. I was maybe three years old, right after dad and I had moved to California. He picked up a copy of it from the video store (I think they were just coming out on VHS at the time, but don't quote me), popped it in, and I was hooked.I'd never seen anything so amazing, so awe-inspiring, that my three-year-old mind was blown.

Mostly by realizing I'd never be as cool as Han Solo.

Nearly three decades later and I still count it among my favorite film series. I spent most of middle school as a full-blown Star Wars nerd, watching the films obsessively and memorizing every little random detail about background characters, droids and vehicles that I could look up on this new-fangled internet thing. I, like so many others, eagerly awaited the prequels, but unlike so many others I actually really enjoyed them.

Though even I know better than to try and defend Jar Jar's existence. I really can't.

I imagine I've always been an odd duck Star Wars fan in that way. I like the prequels, while being able to admit their problems (even Episode 1 has its points, and acting aside, Episode 3 is amazing). I've never gotten the appeal of The Empire Strikes Back. And perhaps most blasphemous of all... I even love the Special Editions.

We'll get back to you later, Greedo.

But the one thing I think a lot of Star Wars fans can agree with me on, is my personal favorite scene in the original trilogy:

Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...

In every fantasy series you're going to get one scene where the hero is introduced to the big, fantastical world that he will soon be a part of, and Mos Eisley set the gold standard. While previous scenes in the movies had introduced us mostly to humans and a few uniform races, in Mos Eisley we get a great alien mixing pot of some dangerous, bizarre and awesomely whimsical aliens, like...

Batboy with see-through eye action!

The greatest band in the universe!

The Wolfman! (who has the magical power to change into a giant lizard)

And this mysterious pair of alien knees that just randomly walks past, now framing the most stoned looking droid on Tatooine.

I could go on about this scene at length (especially the hours I spent back in the day learning the names of every character in the cantina, including each individual member of the band), but I think I'm just going to let this article end with the scene speaking for itself. For all the cantina goodness, untouched by Special Edition hands, cue up the clip to 4:30 and enjoy! Try not to get the song stuck in your head.

So dear readers, do I really have to ask if there are any other Star Wars fans out there? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my monthlong countdown of favorite alien moments in pop culture. Fiona and I have dedicated our blogs this month to this topic in honor of the upcoming release of our book, The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters, available where books are sold on September 23, 2014.

Why look, this picture happens to hyperlink to Amazon!

Already this month I have dedicated an entry to Orson Welles' classic rendition of War of the Worlds (# 5), but today I'm going to talk about a decidedly more family-friendly story of alien contact, about a young boy who befriends a lost alien. I am, of course, talking about...

I'd never seen this poster before Google searching it today, and already it is one of my favorites.

Bet by that description you were thinking I was talking about E.T., weren't you? Well, assuming of course you just stumbled across my blog and didn't happen to read the title of this particular list entry. But still, if you were thinking E.T. would show up on this list, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Cool bikes, though.

Nothing against the movie, of course, it's as expertly-crafted as any mid-80's Spielberg movie, but I never really made the emotional connection with it that pretty much every other kid of my generation did. In fact, I've found more successful emotionally manipulative movies as an adult than I ever did as a kid, which either means I had a thicker skin back then (unlikely) or probably didn't pay as much attention to things like that then as I do now (likely). Which might be why I have a lot more fun now watching kids movies than I ever did as a kid, as its allowed me to discover some true gems.

Like this guy.

Be warned, I'm going to give a fair SPOILER ALERT for the rest of this entry.The Iron Giant is a wonderfully odd little film. A callback to B-movies of the 1950's (even setting itself during the period), it's a smart film about a young boy who befriends a giant, amnesiac robot who may actually be the vanguard of a coming alien invasion. It's a great movie about friendship and hate and paranoia with a fairly adult script. Naturally it bombed at the box office, because the studio didn't know how to market it, and because it was a smart animated movie not released by Pixar so people didn't really care.

Seriously, it's a movie with a pipe-smoking commie hunter for a villain, this isn't exactly an easy sell to 90's kids.

If you haven't seen it, you really should because it really is one of the best family films of the last 20 years. You should also probably ignore the second half of this article, because that's when that SPOILER ALERT I put in earlier really comes into play.If you have seen it, well, you probably know what moment from the film I'm going to highlight here.

The majority of the film is made up of the friendship between the titular Iron Giant and the unfortunately named earth boy, Hogarth. He discovers the giant in the woods one night, and realizing that he's basically a big, scared kid (that sounds a lot like Vin Diesel), decides to protect him and be his friend. They share adventures, hide from government agents, and in general have the sorts of fun kids had before the internet ruined everything.Ultimately it is revealed that the Giant was actually a very powerful, and very dangerous weapon sent from another world to enslave the Earth, but a bump on the head rendered him amnesiac and adorable.and only occasionally a killing machine.

The kind less kid-friendly movies are made of.

Hogarth successfully teaches the Giant that it doesn't have to be a gun, that it can be just like Superman, and everything is OK, for a while at least.Then the government guys come back and, well, one thing leads to another and this happens.

Hogarth is knocked unconscious in the fray. Thinking him dead, the Giant goes on a rampage, destroying several army units, and causing the paranoid government agent who'd been following him throughout the movie to order a nuclear strike. Realizing that Hogarth is still alive, the Giant deactivates his weapons. Also realizing that the nuclear weapon will kill Hogarth, the military, and the entire surrounding small town, he bids goodbye to his friend, takes off and sacrifices himself to destroy the missile.If this weren't tear-jerky enough, he has one last word on his giant steel lips before dying.

"Superman."

I know I cry pretty easy, but this moment gets right into the heart-ripping-out territory, and I will always love it for that (even discounting the fact that he is clearly alive, if in pieces at the end, and possibly remembering his original mission, leaving a very depressing/gritty sequel where he enslaves Earth.)So dear readers, has anyone else teared up at the end of The Iron Giant? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Hello dear readers, and welcome to my August list. We're going to be doing something a little different this month. While I normally try to tie my lists either to something related to the month or (on rarer occasions) writing in general, Fiona and I have decided to dedicate our blog lists this month to the upcoming release of our book The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters, available where books are sold on September 23, 2014.

Subtle ad, no?

While there are a number of topics related to the book that would have made excellent pop-culture lists, we decided that this month we were going to go basic and dedicate August to our favorite uses of aliens in pop culture.

These guys.

Since aliens come in many shapes and sizes and temperaments (just as our titular Splinters do), and we are big sci-fi and horror junkies, we thought this would be an excellent topic to end summer on a high note with and a great lead-in to our upcoming book (OK, I think that's enough ads for one day). So, without further ado, I kick off my list with my number five moment:

Ever since I was little, my dad has always been trying to give me an appreciation for the power of radio. Having grown up on it, and worked in it for decades, and having met his wife and my mom because of it, I can understand why he might have a fondness for the medium. While this would be a great moment for me to make one of the many cracks at how old my dad is, I gotta admit, he does have a point. Well done radio (especially the long-lost art of radio fiction) has a power that few other storytelling mediums have. Like a good written story, it makes you use your imagination to fill in the images. Like a good movie, it has the benefit of multiple voices, actors emoting, and the ever-important timing.So basically, if you get the right story together, with the right audience, and the right minds behind the scenes putting it all together, you can get something truly special.

Especially if this guy is one of the maniacs behind the scenes.

H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds is a classic of science fiction for a reason, as it is basically the archetype for all modern alien invasion stories. While it doesn't hold up particularly well in this day and age and has one of the biggest deus ex machina endings in the history of fiction (albeit one that is ridiculously realistic, as anyone who has traveled internationally can attest), it has rightfully been adapted a number of times. The cheesy 1953 version, while having some ridiculous dialogue and staging, is one of the true scifi classics of the period (and was probably in my Top 5 favorite movies when I was 6), while Stephen Spielberg's 2005 adaptation not only gave Tom Cruise one of his best excuses to run really fast yet, but was also one of the most legitimately creepy non-horror films of the last decade.However, put the story in the hands of a shameless self-promoter with an evil grand scheme for publicity and, well, you get something people are still talking about 70-some-odd years later..

After reading enough stories, I get that the hysteria in the wake of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast was exaggerated. That said, the best exaggerations are the believable ones, and it was pretty easy to get why people would believe this one.Instead of creating a straight adaptation of Wells' novel, Welles (this is going to get confusing) created something of a primitive found-footage style horror story, starting off the broadcast by pretending to be a show of dance music with periodic interruptions for news about strange happenings on the surface of Mars. Soon enough, the broadcast switches to a live remote about a strange object from the stars having fallen on the (real) small town of Grover's Mill, New Jersey. People are brought to the scene to report on this incident, and soon things start getting scary. It's clear that the object is no mere meteor, and soon something horrible emerges from it.I'd give away more details, but I honestly think that this portion of the broadcast speaks for itself. I've embedded a copy of it below, don't feel obligated to listen to the whole thing, but please, if you have a few minutes, check out approximately minutes 13:00-18:30 for what are possibly five of the creepiest minutes of audio ever recorded.

It may just be me, but that brief moment of silence still gives me the chills.Orson Welles was a master of showmanship. From his attempts at making this ludicrous story sound real, to timing the initial attack for the end of the most popular show on radio the next network over (when people would be changing their dials around), to his delightfully disingenuous apology after the fact ("don't believe everything you hear on radio"), he made the War of the Worlds into a fictional event whose power is yet to be rivaled and is still played on Halloween to this day. In doing so, he ensured himself a career as one of cinema's most decorated filmmakers, and as one of the world's greatest spokesmen for frozen peas.

And being that I'm a gigantic nerd, yes, I visited the monument in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, where the aliens were supposed to have landed when my wife and I took our epic, cross-country road trip. It's in one of the nicer smelling parts of the state.

So dear readers, has anyone else gotten creeped out by listening to War of the Worlds? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Author

Matt Carter is an author of Horror, Sci-Fi, and yes even a little bit of Young Adult fiction. Along with his wife, F.J.R. Titchenell, he is represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel and lives in the usually sunny town of San Gabriel, CA.